Mickey Rourke Slams Tom Cruise for ‘Irrelevant’ Career Choices


Mickey Rourke, Tom Cruise
Broadimage/Shutterstock; Steve Cho Kyewoong/Penta Press/Shutterstock

New feud alert? Mickey Rourke didn’t mince words when talking about Tom Cruise‘s recent career choices.

“The guy’s been doing the same effing part for 35 years,” the Oscar winner, 69, said during a Monday, July 11, appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored. “I got no respect for that.”

Piers MorganWe had asked the Masked Singer alum for his thoughts on Cruise, 60, reprising his role as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in Top Gun: MaverickThe film has grossed more than $1 billion in box office revenue. Rourke, however, doesn’t find that figure impressive, either.

“I don’t care about money and power,” the Wrestler actor said, adding that he doesn’t think the Rain Man star’s acting skills aren’t as refined as they could be. “I care about, when I watch Al PacinoWork and [Christopher] WalkenAnd [Robert] De Niro’s early work and Richard Harris’ work and Ray Winstone’s work, that’s the kind of actor I want to be like. [Montgomery]Clift and [Marlon] Brando back in the day.”

Morgan, 57, was curious if Rourke believed the Mission: Impossible star is a good actor, the New York native replied, “I think he’s irrelevant, in my world.”

The Iron Man 2Stars may not be as impressed by Top Gun: MaverickHe is, however, in the minority. The sequel to 1986’s Top GunIt has been so successful that a second movie is now possible.

“That would be great, but that’s all up to TC,” Miles Teller, who plays Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw in Maverick?, told Entertainment Tonightearlier this month. “It’s all up to Tom. I’ve been having some conversations with him about it. We’ll see.”

The Oscar nominee, 35, stars as the son of Maverick’s late friend Goose, who was played by Anthony EdwardsThe original film. When the second film begins, Maverick is still feeling guilt over Goose’s death, which Rooster seems to blame him for. Rooster begins to see Maverick as a mentor by the end of the movie.

Edwards, 59, doesn’t appear in MaverickHe was happy with the way the new film presented his character. “I was lucky enough that Tom called me up,” the ER alum told ETIn June. “He screened it for me in person. … As I said to Tom, ‘Mission accomplished.’ They did it. They did it. It’s a lot of work that went into that. It had the feel, it had the tone, it had what people wanted.”

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